


His Shining Silver Blade

by hobbitdragon



Series: Witcher Fics [8]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Abuse Aftermath, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Assassination, Fake Relationship in the worst possible way, Geralt lands in Nilfgaard after the Wild hunt rather than near Kaer Morhen, Hopeful Ending, Lies of Omission, M/M, Manipulation, Memory Alteration, Oral Sex, Perpetrator Pretends to Be Victim's Lover, Rape By Deception, Rescue, and Yen lands near Kaer Morhen instead of in Nilfgaard, political machinations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:40:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27479701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hobbitdragon/pseuds/hobbitdragon
Summary: The Emperor’s eyes were an unusual pale brown, almost amber in color, and his eyebrows had gone white with age while most of his hair was still a deep blue-black. His hand was very soft as the fingertips slipped into the hair at the base of the captive’s neck, igniting a helpless thrill of response there.“Geralt,” the Emperor breathed, looking deeply moved. The Emperor’s heart rabbited under his clothes, frantic like a man terrified, which the captive--Geralt apparently--could not understand at all. “It’s been years, and no one could tell me what happened to you.”Geralt didn’t have an opportunity to respond before the Emperor bent down and Geralt was being kissed.
Relationships: Emhyr var Emreis/Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, endgame Geralt/Eskel and Geralt/Yennefer
Series: Witcher Fics [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1731811
Comments: 23
Kudos: 86
Collections: Consent Issues Exchange 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TrashyTime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrashyTime/gifts).



> Thanks to the folks in the Witcher discord I'm in for giving me the idea for this fic! I think it might have been [Dira Sudis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsudis) specifically who gave me the idea, but I no longer remember. Regardless, thanks to her and to BrightEyedJill for beta-reading this and helping get it into its current state!
> 
> CONTENT WARNING: while Geralt ostensibly consents to the sex in this fic, the only reason he is consenting is because he has complete amnesia, doesn't remember who Emhyr is, and thus can't infer how extensively he's being manipulated by Emhyr to be in a state where he'd consent. Rape by deception (meaning sex someone would not have consented to if they had all the relevant information) is still rape. Even beyond that, this fic very much focuses on and explores being in a relationship with someone highly manipulative and calculating. Read with care.

The soldiers in black armor told him in accented Nordling that the Emperor of Nilfgaard, the White Flame Dancing on the Graves of His Enemies, wanted to see him. 

More quietly, in their own language while standing far enough away that they thought he was out of earshot, they wondered what the Emperor could possibly want with a mutant freak who didn’t even remember his own name. The soldiers were fairly sure he would either be executed, sold into slavery, or held for questioning as a possible nonhuman insurgent connected with a group called the Scoia’tael. 

None of those options sounded good. 

The captive wasn’t sure who the Emperor of Nilfgaard was, but _the White Flame Dancing on the Graves of His Enemies_ sounded ominous. Escaping sounded like a good idea, but they had put the captive in shackles of a peculiar green metal that made him weak and shaky and tired all the time. Well, _more_ weak and shaky and tired all the time. He’d been shivering, shirtless and dehydrated, when they found him. At least they’d provided him with water and food before sending to the capital for instructions about what to do with him. It was only a day before they received orders to bring him to the capital. 

The captive tried, in an exhausted sort of way, to pick the lock of his shackles using wood fragments picked off the crates in the back of their supply cart. But the locks were good ones, the wood pieces just splintered and crushed, and he was too dull-witted to think clearly about how to pick the lock anyway. After the first day’s journey toward the capital, he gave up. At least they’d shackled his hands in front of him, so he could scratch himself when necessary, and the cuffs around his ankles only chafed a little.

When they reached the capital, the captive found it very beautiful, as it boasted broad clean streets full of tall buildings all of black and white and gold. With a resignation that was all he could muster around the shackles, he thought that if he were to be executed or imprisoned, at least this city was the last thing he’d ever see. He let it slide past his eyes where he slumped against the side of the cart. Even in the poorer districts outside the walls of the city, the houses had perfect golden thatch and walls painted in black and white. And as the city progressed into richer and richer districts, clay walls and thatch roofs turned to wood walls and ceramic tile roofing, which in turn became fine sculpted stone. The palace itself barely looked real. White spires dotted with black windows soared high in the sky, their tips gilded so that they gleamed blinding-bright in the noonday sun. 

When the soldiers dragged him upright and through one of the back entrances of the palace, even the low-class bits only the servants were supposed to see were clean and sweet-smelling and beautiful. The floors were so spotless that the captive wouldn’t have felt concerned by eating off them. And as they moved up toward the higher floors of the vast, sprawling building, the beautifully frescoed walls were replaced by white and black marble draped in tapestries depicting a stylized sun over intricately-rendered fields of flowers. Others showed ranks of soldiers in black armor, so recognizable even in their stylization that Geralt could see they had been based on exactly the sort of men leading him now. 

Finally the soldiers brought him to a sunny room which contained three men: two in long black robes embroidered with white script along the hems, and another in a rich black tunic and breeches wearing a heavy gold chain of office. All the soldiers immediately bowed to this man, deeply and at great length--and moreover they grabbed at the captive and forced him to bend over as well. 

_Ah,_ the captive thought, around the endless weak fog the shackles made of his mind, _this must be the Emperor._

The soldiers straightened at last but they continued to hold the captive down, fingers digging into the bony flesh of his arms and shoulders to keep him from rising. Soft footsteps padded over to them, and then beautiful boots made of the softest, finest black leather came into view. 

“Give me the keys to his manacles,” the Emperor commanded in Nordling, his words heavy with fury and disgust. Well then, that sounded as if it would be death after all--perhaps even a death by the Emperor’s own hand? Had the captive given some offense to the Emperor? Probably he had and just couldn’t remember it. But then the Emperor added, “After all this time you bring him _shackled_ to me? This is an outrage!”

The captain who’d been in charge of the escort bowed again, fumbling with his keys and apologizing profusely that he hadn’t been given specific instructions, Your Majesty, he had only been told that the witcher was to be brought to the palace and he had wanted to ensure that the good people in the capitol would be safe. Was the witcher important? He inquired in a small, worried voice.

The Emperor snatched the keys, moving close and unlocking the strange shackles around the captive’s wrists, first, and then, to the captive’s shock (echoed by all the soldiers, who gasped) the Emperor knelt, undoing the cuffs and accompanying bar around the captive’s ankles. As the green metal dropped away, sudden air rushed into the captive’s lungs along with a shock of relief so powerful that he almost fainted. The nausea and stabbing headache that he had almost stopped noticing after so many days vanished in an instant. 

The captive dropped to one knee, weak and gasping, almost crashing into the Emperor by accident. But the Emperor merely steadied him with one hand, rising to his full height again, and then flung the shackles away from him. They skidded across the polished black stone of the floor before striking a leg of the desk and disappearing beneath. Then one of those manicured hands wrapped around the captive’s jaw, forcing him to look up into the Emperor’s face. 

The Emperor’s eyes were an unusual pale brown, almost amber in color, and his eyebrows had gone white with age while most of his hair was still a deep blue-black. His hand was very soft as the fingertips slipped into the hair at the base of the captive’s neck, igniting a helpless thrill of response there. 

“Geralt,” the Emperor breathed, looking deeply moved. The Emperor’s heart rabbited under his clothes, frantic like a man terrified, which the captive--Geralt, apparently--could not understand at all. “It’s been years, and no one could tell me what happened to you.”

Geralt didn’t have an opportunity to respond before the Emperor bent down and Geralt was being kissed.

The Emperor’s lips pressed with aching softness against Geralt’s split and chapped ones. At first, the reality of it simply made to sense to Geralt--he had spent most of a week being taken from what he’d been told was the Nilfgaardian border all the way to the capital expecting to die. Or, worse still, to be tortured for information he couldn’t give and then to die. Or in the best case scenario, to be sent to prison and left to rot before he eventually died. Being kissed with apparent passion by the Emperor had not figured anywhere in the imagined possible outcomes. 

The Emperor drew a long, shaky breath against Geralt’s cheek, their lips parting with sticky reluctance. Before the Emperor went any great distance, however, he laid a second, almost hesitant kiss upon Geralt’s mouth, and this one, Geralt couldn’t help but respond to. He remembered nothing, but the Emperor clearly remembered _him_ with great tenderness. So Geralt kissed back, letting his mouth part and fit together perfectly with the Emperor’s for a brief moment before the Emperor withdrew to look down at him, grip on the back of Geralt’s neck tightening. 

“My witcher,” the Emperor breathed. “My shining silver blade.”

Geralt inferred that ‘witcher’ referred to some variety of inhuman, as the word had come up several times during his week of captivity. ‘Shining silver blade’ was a phrase made up entirely of words he knew, but Geralt had no idea why it was being used as what seemed like an endearment. 

Despite Geralt’s confusion, the Emperor brought Geralt over to his own chair behind the desk, beautifully upholstered in embroidered fabric and soft as a dream compared to the hard cart-bed that had bruised Geralt’s backside all week. 

Then the Emperor began at some length to express his dismay at the treatment of the man so important to him. Geralt felt almost bad for the soldiers. The captain in particular hadn’t treated Geralt with any real malice, and had made sure he’d been fed and watered throughout the trip. One of them, a young woman whom Geralt knew from her talk with the others had a family she supported with her wages, looked close to tears. When it seemed like the Emperor might well have the soldiers executed, Geralt made a noise of protest. The Emperor’s attention snapped to him. 

“Please,” Geralt protested, “they didn’t know. They got me here and they didn’t know what you wanted so it’s not their fault.”

For a moment the Emperor looked furious, mouth pressing into a tight line. But then he sighed, relaxing, and returned to Geralt’s side to run a hand along the nape of Geralt’s neck again. Geralt shivered--the touch, on top of the fading dizziness and exhaustion, threatened to overwhelm him.

“They tell me you can’t remember anything, but it is good to see that you’re still the righteous man I know,” the Emperor sighed. “Very well. Their pay will be docked, nothing more. I cannot begrudge the good nature which won my heart from the beginning.”

The family woman did burst into tears then, though she was clearly trying to hold her breath to keep from making noise about it. One of the others sent Geralt a grateful look. 

Having expressed his displeasure, the Emperor dismissed the soldiers, leaving the two of them alone with the robed men. The Emperor gestured them over. 

“These are some of my mages,” he explained to Geralt. “When I was given information that a man matching your description with no memory of his own name had been found, I brought them here in preparation of your arrival. They will examine you briefly before I take you to my chambers to eat and bathe.”

Geralt nodded his assent to this, suddenly ashamed--he knew that he was rank. The roads had been dotted with bathhouses every twenty miles or so, so the soldiers had bathed regularly. But Geralt, as their captive, had only been cursorily allowed to wash once during the trip, when the soldiers who marched closest to the cart had begun to complain about his odor. And to Geralt’s own nose, there was something markedly different about his own scent compared to that of the men--something strange, bitter or dead or metallic in some way that he could not describe. 

Both of the mages regarded Geralt for a long, silent moment. As the seconds stretched, Geralt began to feel dizzy again, swaying a little on his feet--and then the taller one, a man with thick blond eyebrows and dull grey eyes, shook his head. 

“I am deeply sorry, Your Majesty, but the memories are simply gone,” the mage said. “Perhaps in time they might return, but I think it likely that they will not. We can continue to examine him every few days, and do research to see if anything may be done, but there may be no remedy.”

Geralt thought that he ought to feel sad about that--and he did, a little, because kisses like the ones the Emperor had given him seemed like they’d come with a lot of good memories. But more memories could be made, Geralt supposed. 

The Emperor let out a little sigh, raising his hand to stroke over Geralt’s cheek again. 

“We shall just have to make the most of what we have been given. To have him at all is a great boon.” 

With that, he escorted Geralt to the suite of rooms that very clearly belonged to the Emperor himself. Most surfaces were carved or embossed or gilded or inlaid, many of them with mother of pearl and precious stones. A beautiful canopied bed with heavy opaque draperies of the finest embroidered cloth dominated one room. Geralt looked longingly at it. But the Emperor led him on to a lavish bathing chamber, lit with sunlight from floor-to-ceiling windows along one wall and candles further into the room. The air smelled sweet, perfumed by the candles and the scented oils Geralt could see laid out in a row of crystal bottles in a set of shelves near the recessed set of little pools. Geralt would have called them tubs, but they were too large for that, and much too fancy. 

The Emperor used a pull-cord to call for servants, who came in and stripped both Geralt and the Emperor himself out of their clothes. When Geralt stood naked, the unpleasant odor of his unwashed cock and balls was mortifyingly apparent--but the Emperor seemed not to care. He regarded Geralt’s naked body with an avaricious gleam in his eye, moving close to run the back of his hand up Geralt’s belly. 

“Glorious,” he murmured as the servants busied themselves preparing the baths--multiple baths, in fact. At the side of one they laid out an astonishing array of soaps and creams and items Geralt couldn’t identify. The other bath, which steamed promisingly, they sprinkled with scented oils and salts. 

The Emperor himself presented a fine figure. Geralt’s own body was unpleasantly thin, bones and muscles unnervingly clear through his skin. The Emperor, understandably, had a pleasingly soft layer over most of him, which meant an incredible display of creamy, silky skin that just begged to be touched. 

The Emperor ushered Geralt into the first bath, which he soon found was room temperature. But rather than let Geralt bathe himself, the Emperor seated himself at Geralt’s side so their thighs touched, lathered various tools with soap, and used them on Geralt. 

He started with a small, extraordinarily soft brush on Geralt’s face, working it around in circles starting from Geralt’s hairline. At first Geralt felt agonizingly awkward; for all intents and purposes he didn’t even know this man, had no idea what his name even was, and it was mortifying to have a stranger washing him with such attention and closeness. 

But a few minutes passed and the discomfort faded, leaving only the soothing, careful touch of the brush and the soft, spiced perfume of the soap. Geralt closed his eyes, tentatively reaching out to lay a hand on the Emperor’s thigh. The touch caused the Emperor to let out a little hum of approval, so Geralt started absently stroking the satiny skin there. 

Soon Geralt fell into an almost hypnotic state. He was exquisitely comfortable, tired body supported by the water, and the longer the Emperor touched him, the more yielding and responsive Geralt’s body became, as though his skin were slowly sensitizing to touch. He moved where directed, nerves lighting up in response to the different sensations. The wrinkling pads of the Emperor’s fingers, the circular movements of the brushes, and the slick of the soap. The Emperor worked upon Geralt inch by inch, moving from Geralt’s face and neck to his hair, down his back and chest to his belly. 

By the time the Emperor bade Geralt to spread his legs and sit on the edge of the bath so the bone-white thatch of hair between his legs could be soaped, Geralt’s cock had long since risen, bobbing like an animal begging for attention. Geralt found the sight rather unpleasant--the stifled bloodflow made the head a disturbing bruisy purple color that stood out even more starkly against his deathly pale skin. But before self-consciousness could mar Geralt’s perfect relaxation, the Emperor smiled in delight, lathered his hands, and wrapped both of them around Geralt. 

Geralt gasped and squirmed, helpless to stop himself, as the Emperor stroked his slick, foamy grip up and down Geralt’s cock before pulling down the foreskin and washing inside it. The touch of those fingers along the oversensitive rim of the head got a shocky whine from Geralt, thighs shivering, before the Emperor moved away to caress soap onto Geralt’s balls.

“How I have wanted this,” the Emperor purred. “What a beautiful sight you make. I cannot wait for when you are shaved and naked in my bed. All the things I want to do to you.”

“Yeah,” Geralt agreed breathlessly. As the Emperor twisted his wrist to draw the loose skin up and down the shaft, Geralt would have agreed to almost anything.

The lassitude of the water and the soothing touches before fought with the sharp sweetness of being touched in so intimate a place. The intensity of it all only increased when the Emperor prompted Geralt to lay himself belly-down along the sun-warmed stone of the floor at the lip of the tub, and then pressed soapy fingers between Geralt’s buttocks. At first he merely slipped up and down the furrow, caressing over the exquisitely sensitive skin to spread the soap everywhere, but then two questing fingertips circled over Geralt’s opening. Geralt moaned, spreading his thighs and arching his tailbone up in invitation--and when this earned him a low chuckle of amusement and the tip of one finger pressing inside, Geralt moaned again. 

The Emperor teased him for a while then, dipping just the tips of his fingers in and out, until Geralt was shaking, dizzy from hunger and desire together. He thought he might come that way, just the tips of those cruel fingers toying with him, until one long digit at last slid home. 

At that Geralt came immediately, hips bucking so that his cock rubbed against the polished stone of the pool as it flexed. 

“Blessed be the sun,” the Emperor breathed. “You’re enough to tempt any creature into trespass.”

“Put your cock in me next time,” Geralt mumbled, tension draining out of him again even as the Emperor withdrew his hand. Geralt could feel how something bigger that a finger would be delicious pushing into all his sensitive places. 

Emhyr finished washing the rest of Geralt rather quicker after that. Yet by the time Geralt was clean all over and they had moved into the hot water of the second bath, however, the Emperor’s erection had softened again. 

Which was just as well, as Geralt was soon distracted by food. Servants brought in platters of small items clearly designed to be eaten by hand. Each little mouthful was beautiful, prettily crafted and arranged, and Geralt soon discovered that it all tasted as good as it looked. Savory bites of fish in flaky pastry, a tart and faintly spicy little vegetable hollowed out to hold something creamy and salty, and twenty other perfect delicacies. The Emperor fed Geralt by hand as they both relaxed into the second bath. The heat soothed what little remaining tension Geralt still had. 

While the Emperor’s cock had subsided to half mast, the slow sensuality of the man’s fingers in and on Geralt’s mouth kept Geralt hard and wanting. Now that he knew that sex was not only an option but an upcoming promise, he was primed for more even despite his competing need for food and rest. 

Once Geralt was fed, another servant arrived to shave Geralt’s face. This, Geralt merely endured patiently, since the Emperor had expressed a desire to see him so. 

His patience was rewarded when the Emperor brought Geralt out of the bath again, led him to the bedroom, bent him over a low ottoman in front of the fireplace, and fucked him. 

Geralt had been right, the Emperor’s cock inside him felt exquisite, the sensation just sharp enough to be exciting without its intensity marring the slow, honeyed pleasure of it. Geralt didn’t even have to do anything: he just knelt there and came once, and again, and again before the Emperor finally succumbed himself. 

When they’d finished, the Emperor sat back on his heels. He ran one finger along the underside of Geralt’s cock--still hard--and let out a low chuckle. 

“Ah, the fabled witcher stamina at work, I see.”

Geralt shrugged. Something about the word ‘witcher’ evoked the feeling that it meant a lot, but none of it was anything he could remember. Perhaps it was enough to know it meant he wasn’t human. But linguistic questions flew out of his mind when the Emperor slipped another finger back into him, pushing into the wetness left behind by the Emperor himself. One finger became three, hooking into Geralt and drawing desperate huffs of air out of him as they thrust into him again and again.

“The sight of my seed coming out of you as I do this is nearly enough to inspire even me to feats of virility,” the Emperor rumbled, the deep, rich tones of his voice adding to the sensations to have heat prickling all down Geralt’s back. “I could just sit here and make you come all night, I think. But I imagine you are tired from the ill treatment during your travels--and by the morning you will doubtless have questions.”

“Got one now,” Geralt said, embarrassed to have to ask. “I, uh. I don’t know your name.”

A silence greeted this and the Emperor’s hand went still. Geralt felt miserable heat creep into his cheeks. 

But then the Emperor laughed. He withdrew his fingers, prompting Geralt with a few touches to turn over and kneel beside him where he sat on the carpet. Then the Emperor leaned forward and kissed Geralt, again slow and luxuriant. 

“My name,” he said into Geralt’s mouth, still smiling, “is Emhyr var Emreis.” 

When he sat back a little, Geralt could see the look of tenderness on his face. It was a nice contrast from the disgust, frustration, fascination, and irritation of the faces he’d seen in the last week. 

“When you first met me twenty years ago, however,” the Emperor went on, “I went by a false name and identity: Duny, Urcheon of Erlenwald.”

“Emhyr,” Geralt repeated to himself, keenly aware of the man’s seed dripping out of him. “Emhyr. Nice name.”

Emhyr nuzzled into Geralt’s neck, sidling up close and slipping a hand down behind Geralt to toy with his entrance again. Geralt shivered, cock jerking. 

“When we met,” Emhyr said, voice low and erotic in Geralt’s ear as his fingertip teased Geralt for a second time, “I was already with someone else. You saved my life that night at great risk to yourself, protected me from attackers though you didn’t even know me. It proved impossible for me to be unmoved by such a display of bravery and selflessness, even despite the fact that my affections were engaged elsewhere.”

Something possessive and unpleasant flared up in Geralt at that, a kind of fierce pride that he’d managed to move a man like the Emperor even when there had been someone else. Delight, too, that no matter who that other person had been, _Geralt_ had Emhyr now.

Underneath that, however, was a deep sadness. Twenty years was a long time. Twenty years of memories of Emhyr that Geralt couldn’t recall, not even in the faintest inkling. And even the little story Emhyr had just told left so much room for misinterpretation, so many ways Geralt might imagine those events that could be wrong. He wished he could just remember. He wondered again what had caused him to lose his memories in the first place. 

Well, the mages had been stumped, so there was no point being maudlin over it. Instead, Geralt laid himself out on the hearthrug, spreading his thighs and bringing Emhyr’s hand down between them. 

“One more?” Geralt asked, smiling. 

“One more,” Emhyr answered, looking delighted to be asked. 

**

That night Geralt slept on a mattress that was the perfect combination of firm and yielding. A cloud-like upper layer cradled Geralt’s body in perfect comfort, while the layers beneath were supportive enough that his spine didn’t hurt when he woke. It was so luxurious that Geralt didn’t ever want to leave. 

The only issue with it, in fact, was that it contained no Emhyr at any point. Emhyr couldn’t sleep in a bed with another person in it, he had explained--as a member of the royal family, he had never been expected to share a room in childhood, and very little of his adulthood had included shared spaces either. So Geralt had been forced to check his disappointment when Emhyr had shown Geralt to a beautiful bedroom in the suite of rooms for the royal family and left him there for the night. 

Another extensive spread of incredible food further helped cushion any negative feelings Geralt might have about it. When he asked the servants delivering it to him whether he could go see Emhyr, they told him that the Emperor would be ready for Geralt’s company at nine. 

Given that it was half-past eight then, Geralt set to the food with a vengeance. 

While he ate, the servants laid out clothes for him, and once he finished, one of them showed him how to wear them. The palace itself was much cooler inside than the lands outside, owing to the fact that the palace was chiefly made out of stone. In keeping with the weather, however, the clothes were still light and airy, made of thin, exquisite linens in black and gray and accented with gold embroidery in the image of the sun. It pleased Geralt to be wearing Emhyr’s crest. It was a symbol that Geralt belonged here. 

The clothes quickly came off again once Geralt went to Emhyr’s rooms, though. This time, as soon as Emhyr was bare enough for it, Geralt went to his knees and took the man’s cock in his mouth. The movements of it came automatically, implying long practice. Even when Emhyr’s hips bucked, pushing him into Geralt’s throat, Geralt found he knew how to open himself there too. And he loved the way Emhyr looked down at him in flushed wonder. 

When Emhyr had come and collapsed gasping onto the bed he’d been leaning against, Geralt laid himself out beside the other man. 

“By the sun, you are good at that,” Emhyr wheezed. “Give me--give me a moment.”

When Emhyr had recovered himself, he set out to return the favor, sliding down the bed to take Geralt into his mouth. 

It only took a few awkward and uncomfortable minutes of scraping teeth and limp lips for Geralt to stop Emhyr and pull him up the bed for a kiss.

“We didn’t do this much before, huh,” Geralt said gently, stroking a finger down Emhyr’s cheek. For a moment Emhyr glared, brow furiously furrowed, but Geralt went on, “You must really be glad to have me back if you’re doing something you don’t even like. You don’t have to, you know? There are other things I enjoy if you hate it that much. I get the feeling I’m not hard to please.”

At this, Emhyr’s face softened. He sighed. “You’re right. Before you disappeared I didn’t offer this. I don’t like the taste, and I have a strong gag reflex. But now...now I find myself determined to have all of you.”

Geralt smiled at him, feeling a rush of love and warmth he hardly knew how to contain. 

“I can show you what I like,” he said, overwhelmed by the fact of being so wanted. “If there’s anything we didn’t used to do, I can just show you.”

For a long, silent moment, Emhyr regarded him, his eyes unreadable. Then he smiled, slow and sweet and handsome. 

“Well then,” he said. “Show me how to please you this way.”

They passed a very instructive and enjoyable half-hour.

**

Over the next week, Geralt discovered that Emhyr had never been fucked before, either. But that made sense to Geralt; Divine Emperors were probably not encouraged to be seen face-down ass-up and taking cock. It might very well be some sort of treason, for all Geralt knew, to fuck the royal asshole. 

But Emhyr took to it with gusto, pushing back against Geralt with every evidence of enjoyment. By the end of it, when Emhyr had come his customary once and Geralt had come three times, Geralt still wanted to show his appreciation, so he got down and licked Emhyr clean, delighted by the taste of his own seed inside Emhyr. It made Geralt feel wild, possessive, to know that no other man had ever had the privilege of doing this to Emhyr.

Emhyr refused to let Geralt kiss him after that, however--concerns about hygiene, he said. 

“As a witcher, you are made of rather hardier stuff than I am, I fear,” he explained. “I would not do well if you kissed me now. It can wait until you have cleaned your mouth.” But he smiled anyway, digging his fingers into Geralt’s hair and drawing him down to lie at Emhyr’s side, skin to skin all over. 

“I can already tell you will wear me out this week,” Emhyr said with clear approval in his voice. “I say that with anticipation. There will come a time when I have too many responsibilities of state to do this with you all the time, but for now--I have cleared my schedule in celebration of finding you, and I mean to spend as much of that time at your side as possible.”

Geralt might not have been allowed to kiss Emhyr’s mouth for now, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t touch in other ways. So Geralt set to rubbing his face on all the beautiful, smooth tracts of Emhyr’s skin. It satisfied something animal and deep in Geralt to mix their scents and leave so much of Emhyr smelling like their union. 

**

The week they passed together was blissful, only marred by several visits from the court mages to examine Geralt again. Those visits left Geralt dizzy and headachey and tired as they tried and failed to recover Geralt’s memories--but the unpleasantness never lasted for long. A half-hour nap after each and he was back to his usual self. 

He read books with Emhyr, and Emhyr taught him history and aspects of Nilfgaardian culture that Geralt had forgotten. Emhyr also described what little he knew of how Geralt had been lost. 

“You were attacked by an angry mob,” Emhyr said, brow creased with distress as he said it. He was not the most expressive man, especially with other people, but Geralt found him easy enough to read. “I was not there, so I only know what my informants have been able to glean. You were stabbed, and reports said you were dead, along with at least one person who was with you. I don’t know how you survived to be with me today.”

“Glad I did, though,” Geralt said, feeling disturbed at this recounting of his apparent death. He shifted to sit a little closer to Emhyr on the couch and wrapped an arm around the other man’s shoulders. 

For a long moment, Emhyr looked distant, staring at the wall as if lost in thought. Then at last, he said, slowly, “Our daughter might have had something to do with your survival.”

At this, Geralt’s eyes went wide, shock running through his body like cold water. “We have a daughter? Where is she?”

“I don’t know,” Emhyr admitted, clearly deeply upset by this fact. “She has always been a willful child, and she has powers unlike any other human alive. You have worked very hard over many years to keep her safe from people who wanted to use her for their own ends, but now...now I don’t know what has happened to her. And with your memories gone, even if she was the one to save you, you can’t tell me either.”

Most of the time, Geralt felt only a kind of dim concern about his lost memories. He was so happy that it was hard to feel as if he was missing anything. But now, Geralt found himself suddenly wishing that he could recall anything at all. 

A _daughter._ A daughter they _shared._ The information felt deeply significant, settling in Geralt’s chest like a heavy stone. 

“I’m sorry,” Geralt confessed. “I wish I could tell you. I wish I knew.”

But at this, Emhyr merely waved Geralt’s words away. 

“Even if you could recall, it would not bring here here. Cirilla and I haven’t gotten along well since she was small. You have long been her favored parent--meaning that even if you knew where she was, she would not want to be here with us--with me--for longer than a moment.”

The pain in Emhyr’s face at this was so evident that Geralt didn’t like to ask more. But he felt he had to know.

“What happened?” he asked, quiet and low. 

Emhyr actually shut his eyes. “I...I believed that something very brutal and terrible was necessary in order to protect a great many people from a very terrible fate. She naturally protested it, thinking it monstrous--and in the end, even I could not make myself go through with it. But the fact that I meant to do it at all was enough to destroy any trust that had once between us. I...” he trailed off, lips twisted into a bitter knot. “Please. I know you doubtless have a great many questions, and you naturally will wish to know more about this, but it is too painful for me to discuss. Suffice it to say that our daughter left, and that it is my fault. I merely hope you can accept that.”

Geralt had no idea what to say to that, but he kissed Emhyr, tender and slow. Emhyr sighed into it. 

They didn’t discuss it again.


	2. Chapter 2

After the first week, Emhyr had to resume most of his duties--which meant that he brought in trainers to occupy Geralt’s time. 

“You are a sword fighter of exceptional skill,” Emhyr told him, smoothing a hand down the front of Geralt’s armor with possessive pleasure, as if enjoying the sight of Geralt in black leather. “We have given you enough time to recover. It would be best for you if you got back into fighting trim.”

Geralt himself wasn’t certain of that until he had a sword in hand and was in the training arena with one of the guards and a swordmaster watching--and then it just felt wonderful to move. He disarmed the guard in half a minute. 

The swordmaster, a short woman with dark skin and a very serious face, actually gave a nod of approval at this, and stepped into the ring herself. 

She gave Geralt much more of a challenge. They sparred for a much longer time before she won--and then she set out to teach Geralt how to do it himself. 

“They told me you had lost your memory due to some sort of magic or brain damage,” she said, showing him a particular disarming technique. “I figured hiring me was just a whim of the Emperor for one of his friends, and I’d be teaching some dimwit. But whatever happened to you, it didn’t affect your skills. I’ve never had the pleasure of fighting a witcher before. It is good to see that their reputation as skilled fighters is not just talk.”

Geralt took this compliment with a crooked little smile, feeling awkward. How was one supposed to respond to something like that? 

A witcher, he’d learned, was a hunter and tracker of unparalleled skill, altered from human in order to destroy monsters which even highly trained humans couldn’t manage. That explained Geralt’s unusual appearance, which the soldiers had remarked so negatively upon, as well as his enhanced senses and inhuman strength. 

The soldiers might not have liked the look of Geralt, and some of the servants didn’t either, but Emhyr certainly did. Geralt often found the Emperor looking at him with greedy pleasure, and the way that Emhyr smelled and reacted to Geralt physically made it very obvious that his desire was real. The opinions of others mattered little when Emhyr liked him so much.

**

The swordmaster trained with Geralt every day for a week before Emhyr brought in other experts to determine what other knowledge Geralt had retained and what, if any, he had lost. 

One man, with hair so blond it was almost the same color as Geralt’s, worked with Geralt on how to walk silently on various surfaces. Geralt was already familiar with most of what he taught, but he still picked up some useful skills, just as he had from the swordmaster. 

Another woman, a pretty young person with blue-black hair and pink cheeks, cheerfully taught Geralt to pick locks. If Geralt had known how to do this before, he had certainly lost the skill, but this instructor was patient and good-humored. 

Three weeks passed before Emhyr managed to bring in another witcher to help tutor Geralt in witcher-specific skills that human trainers could not provide. One of the court mages would oversee their meetings, Emhyr said, in case the other witcher tried something nefarious toward Geralt. 

“There are different schools of witchers,” Emhyr explained. “Yours, the School of the Wolf, clearly did something right in creating you. The graduates of some of the other schools, however, are little more than common mercenaries, meaning their loyalty may be bought by anyone with enough coin. So if someone were to wish you harm, using another witcher would be the best way to achieve it.”

Geralt found this oversight irritatingly fussy, but it wasn’t as if the mere presence of a mage was any real bother, so he didn’t complain about it. 

The witcher had the same bright yellow slitted eyes that Geralt saw in the mirror every morning when he shaved, but instead of a wolf medallion, this one wore the emblem of a snake. When asked, he explained that he was from the School of the Viper. He spent a great deal of time teaching Geralt potion-making and then showed Geralt what he called Signs, which were magical gestures witchers used to cast small spells. Some of them felt familiar when Geralt used them, but some of the others felt strange in his limbs and body. 

“Difference between schools,” the man explained when Geralt remarked upon this. “Different schools prefer different selections of Signs, or different variations on them. Wolf School has a smaller set than most.” Then the man sighed, looking up from the practice yard to the towering walls of the palace. 

“You’re doing all right for yourself,” he murmured at a volume low enough that nobody else would hear. “What did you have to do to get his approval? The School of the Viper has been down here the whole time and Emhyr hasn’t been kind to us.”

“He’s a bit of an asshole to most people, I think,” Geralt sighed. “I don’t really know why he loves me--I don’t remember anymore.”

“Yeah, yeah, hence me being here,” the man sighed, and corrected Geralt’s gesture for one of the unfamiliar Signs. “Well, if you happen to see a way to do it, put in a good word for us. It’s hard being a witcher in Nilfgaard. Other than for you, apparently.”

“Yeah,” Geralt agreed, and this time managed to cast the new Sign correctly. It sent the dog they were practicing on instantly to sleep, the animal slumping over with its paws twitching. Geralt gestured at it. “It’s safe, right?”

“Yeah, of course,” the other witcher said. “It’ll wake up in an hour or so happy as anything.”

**

A month and a half after Geralt’s arrival in the palace after a fine dinner eaten together on one of the balconies, Emhyr regarded Geralt with a serious expression.

“Spit it out,” Geralt said, wondering what could be making Emhyr look like that. 

With a sigh, Emhyr complied. 

“I find I am in need of your professional skill again,” he said reluctantly. 

“For killing a human,” Geralt inferred, and when Emhyr lifted an eyebrow, Geralt explained, “You wouldn’t be this hesitant if it was just some monster.”

With a grim little smile, Emhyr laid a hand over Geralt’s on the table, stroking his knuckles with one thumb. 

“You read me well. Well, let me put it to you, then: when I was thirteen, my father was deposed and I was cursed to an inhuman form and cast out of the castle. You met me at thirty, still cursed, and drew blade to defend me from those who would have killed me. At thirty-seven, I returned to the palace with a group of supporters and slew all of those I could find who had hurt me or supported the Usurper in doing so.”

Geralt nodded. He followed so far. 

“I have recently learned that at least one of the Usurper’s supporters still lives. He has eluded me all this time by working from the shadows. He has long denounced my policies, but I thought nothing of it until I received some damning information about him this week.”

“And you want me to kill him,” Geralt concluded. “That’s why you’ve had me practicing swordwork with human opponents rather than finding some monsters to send me against.”

“Well, that and my own selfish desire to keep you at my side,” Emhyr agreed. “There are other witchers who can deal with monsters. There are no other witchers who are to me what you are.”

“Your shining silver blade,” Geralt recalled, and when Emhyr raised his eyebrows, Geralt said, “You called me that the first day I was brought into the palace. As endearments go, it was pretty memorable.”

They sat in silence for a few moments, Emhyr seeming to want to let Geralt think this through on his own. But from Geralt’s perspective, there really wasn’t much thinking to do. Someone was threatening his lover.

“So, tell me where I find this man, and what I need to do.”

Something in Emhyr’s posture softened and he settled into his chair with more ease. He let out a long breath. 

“I feared that, after everything that happened to you and without your memories, you would not...well. It seems I need not have concerned myself,” Emhyr said. “I will tell you everything you need to know tomorrow. Right now, I find that I want you in my bed.”

With a smile, Geralt allowed himself to be led away. 

**

In the end, Emhyr definitely need not have fussed, as it was not a very difficult task. One of the court mages sent Geralt through a portal to the nobleman’s estate after dusk. From there it was simple enough to pick a lock and sneak in through the stable-yard entrance. With Geralt’s enhanced hearing, servants were easily avoided, and once upstairs, Geralt found the man himself taking a quiet late-night meal in his rooms. His head was off and Geralt was back down onto the ground floor within ten minutes of entering the house. Twenty minutes later he was out in the gardens activating the charm that would let the mages know to bring him back. 

The sight of the huge spray of blood and the man’s shocked face replayed in Geralt’s mind over and over as he waited for the portal to open. 

But this demonstration of Geralt’s regard apparently moved Emhyr so deeply that he rode Geralt until even Geralt couldn’t come anymore. Emhyr himself had to be sore by then, but when Geralt inquired about it, Emhyr merely smiled and said, “I want to be able to feel you all of tomorrow.”

It went a long way to easing the horror of the killing. 

**

Over the coming months, Geralt helped resolve several similar situations. When Emhyr at last asked Geralt to assassinate King Henselt, however, this gave Geralt some pause.

His first impulse was just to agree, but a _King_...killing a few minor nobles was dirty work, but they always had so many relatives that the vacancy wouldn’t stand for long. A king, though--no matter how clear the line of inheritance, the death of a king could wreck the prosperity of an entire nation. An assassination even moreso.

“Why do you want him dead?” Geralt demanded. “How does his death serve you?”

At this, Emhyr regarded Geralt. Two of the man’s long, elegant fingers rubbed back and forth over the pad of his thumb as he thought. He looked calm, but Geralt could hear the man’s heart racing. 

“You don’t have to lie to me,” Geralt said gently, softening a little. “I’m yours. You know that. Just tell me what you really want.”

This time Emhyr swallowed, looking away from Geralt as though unable to face him. 

“You astonish me,” he said at last, and his voice shook. “The truth is that...there is a prophecy, called the Prophecy of Ithlinne, which describes the whole world perishing in endless winter. Most prophecies one may dismiss as so much intoxicated rambling, but this one...cannot be dismissed.”

Geralt listened. He could feel small tremors that went through the flesh along Emhyr’s ribcage, echoing down his arm to the hand which held Geralt’s. The man’s earnestness was impossible to doubt. 

“This prophecy speaks not only of the death of the world, however, but of its saving,” Emhyr continued. “And it states that the one to save the world from perishing in eternal winter will be one of Elder blood--my blood. The blood of our daughter. I believe it speaks of _our heirs._ Our _daughter’s_ heirs.” Emhyr closed his eyes, then, overwhelmed. “She and I may be estranged, but when this prophecy comes to pass, her heirs _must_ have every support I can give them. And what I can give them, Geralt, or what I hope to give them, is a united world, with the combined resources to do whatever is necessary to preserve humanity.” 

Emhyr blinked, his eyes bright and shining as he turned them on Geralt. His gaze was as desperate as Geralt had ever seen it, and Geralt himself felt short of breath under the weight of it. 

“It has been the greatest purpose of my life to do whatever is necessary to prevent the doom of which this prophecy speaks,” Emhyr continued. “Nilfgaard is a great nation with unparalleled military might, but even so it is not enough to face a crisis which will destroy the entire world! For an undertaking such as this, _every_ resource, _every_ land must be as one. And the fastest, most bloodless way to make a nation ready for conquest is to first destabilize it by removing its leaders.”

At this, Geralt sat back. Emhyr was speaking of conquest--and not just conquest of one nation, but of _all_ nations. It was violence of a scale that beggared understanding, death visited upon thousands upon thousands of innocents like the soldiers who had brought Geralt to the palace. Not the nicest people, perhaps, nor the best, but people who had families, who had joined up to escape dull lives, or to make enough money to survive, or a hundred reasons that had nothing to do with wanting violence. 

But what were a few thousand lives when measured against the death of every living thing in the entire world? Geralt could not fault Emhyr’s logic, unpleasant as it was. It was the kind of brutal arithmetic any ruler would be forced to calculate at some point. Unlucky Emhyr, then, to be the Emperor faced with this particular set of numbers. 

Finally Geralt sighed. He squeezed Emhyr’s hand before lifting it to kiss the knuckles. 

“This is what estranged you from our daughter, isn’t it.”

Emhyr flinched, pulling his hand out of Geralt’s grasp. He looked miserable. It was the most dramatic display of vulnerability Geralt had ever seen in the man. 

“You're a little too insightful,” Emhyr answered after a long pause. “What I have had to do as Emperor is not what any kind-hearted person would wish.”

More than anything it was Emhyr’s tortured expression that decided Geralt. Emhyr could be vicious and cruel in protection of what he loved, absolutely, but Geralt felt certain that wasn’t what was at the heart of him. 

“All right,” Geralt agreed. “Speak to your mages. Get me into place to do this.”

Emhyr shut his eyes. Geralt had expected him to look relieved, but instead Emhyr looked as though an even heavier weight had been placed on his shoulders. His lips twisted into an unhappy knot. 

Geralt understood that. He didn’t want to do this either. But he understood that out of a lineup of bad choices, one simply had to choose whichever was least terrible and live with it. And if it was hard for him to strike the killing blow, how much worse must it be for Emhyr to _ask_ it of him? No one wanted to ask their beloved for such things, or to have conversations such as this one explaining them. 

Emhyr nodded. 

**

Geralt half expected that Emhyr would want sex that evening, but evidently the assassination of a fellow ruler left him in a different mood than the killing of those who had hurt and betrayed him personally. Instead he seemed inclined to fuss over Geralt, calling in the mages yet again to have them check him for any way to restore his memories. Yet again their attentions left Geralt headachey and sick to his stomach, but this time, when he went to sleep it off, Emhyr went to bed with him. They both left their braies on, however, and Emhyr didn’t seem inclined to even do so much as kiss Geralt on the mouth. 

Geralt awoke an hour later, refreshed and warm, still in the circle of Emhyr’s arms. Emhyr himself lay stiff, staring up at the ceiling. 

Geralt ran a thumb along the prickly underside of Emhyr’s chin. It was late enough in the evening that the shadow of his facial hair was just visible.

At the touch, Emhyr looked down at Geralt. Emhyr was one of those men with a naturally serious face, but Geralt could tell that right now it wasn’t just his resting expression that made him look that way.

“What’re you thinking?” Geralt asked.

With a sigh, Emhyr seemed to make an effort to relax himself. He stroked over Geralt’s bicep. 

“I find myself thinking often of Cirilla,” he admitted. Geralt expected more to follow, but nothing did. 

“She wouldn’t approve of this,” Geralt guessed. “What we’re going to do with King Henselt, and the North.”

For a long silent stretch, Emhyr seemed to stop breathing. Then at last he drew a sharp inhalation through his nose and said, cautiously, “No, no she would not. But if you are worried that you, too, will lose her affections, I promise you that she will blame this on me.”

With a snort Geralt withdrew enough to push himself up on his elbows. This way he could get a proper look at Emhyr. 

“Not what I was thinking, but thanks. No, I was just thinking that you must miss her.” Geralt himself missed her, and he didn’t even remember what she looked like or the sound of her voice. It was a strange, aimless kind of unhappiness.

Emhyr was very still, in the way of creatures caught before a predator. Geralt didn’t understand why. He stroked a hand over the center of Emhyr’s chest, trying to soothe him. 

“You have no idea how much I miss just being her father,” Emhyr said at last. “Pray that you never understand what this feels like.” 

Then he rose from the bed and went to go make the arrangements to send Geralt to Kaedwen.

**

This death was much less clean than the others. Geralt had to kill not only Henselt himself, but some of his guards and the mage at his side before Geralt could escape and to a place hidden enough to call for extraction. 

In the days that followed, Geralt tried to soothe himself that this was for the greater good--for the preservation of the whole world. The thought gave him remarkably little comfort. 

If nothing else, it left Geralt feeling even closer to Emhyr. Knowing that the same burden weighed on the both of them helped Geralt understand why Emhyr was so often cold and cruel. Geralt seemed to respond to the pressure with guilt, while Emhyr responded with anger at the world for putting him in such a position. As the days passed, Geralt understood that Emhyr was furious with Destiny for giving him such a role to play. 

Sometimes Geralt liked to imagine the sort of man Emhyr would have been if he had gotten to stay as Duny. He asked Emhyr to tell him more about that time in their lives and Emhyr obliged, describing the years he'd spent cursed and the night he’d met Geralt and first fallen in love with him, even as he’d gotten married to someone else. 

But after Henselt came King Esterad Thyssen of Kovir and Poviss, and then King Demavend III of Aidern. Even without hearing the details, which Geralt staunchly avoided asking after, Geralt could imagine the absolute chaos of the North now. 

What kings were left would be fortifying themselves against attack, fearing that whatever force had stricken down three others would come for them next. 

Unsurprisingly, then, it was with the next target, King Foltest, that things went wrong. Geralt had managed to eavesdrop in the Temerian palace's kitchens to locate the King in the eastern portion of the castle. Geralt crept down the border of a huge and dramatic hall, clearly the place where the King held audiences and demonstrated the power of his position. But instead of being out in the open, the presence of two guards outside a small antechamber meant that the king was in a much more difficult position. 

With a flick of his wrist, Geralt made the sign that would send them to sleep just as they spotted him. They fell before Geralt could reach them, armor and helmets clattering as they subsided to the floor. 

Geralt hid himself just in time as two people came out of the room to determine the source of the noise.

“Asleep,” said someone with a deep, gravelly voice. “Whatever or whoever did this must be nearby.”

“Obviously,” said someone with a much higher, softer voice. “Your Majesty, come with us. It’s not safe here.”

Geralt listened carefully. By the sound, one small, light body in cloth and heeled boots, a heavy one in leather armor and boots with thick soles, and then what was probably the King himself in a mix of cloth and chainmail. They moved together through the doorway.

Knowing he probably wouldn’t get a tidier chance than this, even if he did have to kill the two others, Geralt stepped out of his hiding place. 

There stood a small woman in black and white clothes whose eyes were a dramatic purple. The King himself was to her left. And at the King’s right hand, in red and black leather, stood a witcher with dramatic and brutal scarring along the entirety of the right side of his face.

Geralt swore under his breath at the sight of both the golden eyes that marked the scarred man as a witcher and the purple ones that marked the woman as a powerful sorceress. Emhyr’s intelligence officers had warned Geralt there might be a variety of powerful fighters at Foltest’s side, and shown Geralt drawings and descriptions of those he might encounter--including a sorceress with purple eyes. But it was pure bad luck for Geralt to run afoul of both a sorceress _and_ a witcher at once. 

Geralt gestured to form a Quen shield around himself, and then used his left hand to activate the charm attached to his belt that would tell the mages to open a portal for him soon. At least it wasn’t _two_ sorceresses and a witcher; Emhyr’s informants had said that Foltest apparently had another sorceress as his advisor, and this one wasn’t her. 

At the sight of Geralt, the eyes of all three people went huge. 

“Geralt of Rivia?” the King said at almost the exact same moment as the witcher breathed, _“Geralt?”_

For a moment Geralt froze--how did these people know him? He, of course, didn’t recognize them. Why hadn’t Emhyr prepared him for this?

“Geralt, where have you been?” the other witcher demanded. “What are you _doing?”_

A dagger was out of Geralt’s sheath and flying at Foltest in a split second, but the witcher knocked it out of the air just before it could bury itself in the King’s eye. 

“Are you the one behind the assassinations?” the sorceress demanded, her eyes narrowing. “You are, aren’t you. _Shit.”_

The King finally got a smart idea and hid himself behind the burly witcher.

“Please, Geralt,” the witcher begged, “don’t do this.”

The sorceress made a face and that was the only warning Geralt got before flame gushed from the sorceress’s fingertips. Geralt's Quen burst almost instantly and his clothes ignited against his skin. He rolled away, desperate, trying to put it out--and had only the smallest fraction of a second to recognize the glowing ring of sigils on the floor before he tumbled into it. 

Everything slowed down all at once. Geralt couldn’t tell which way was up, half-blind with the power of the Yrden, barely able to breathe inside the crushing cage of it. He couldn’t twist, couldn’t move, couldn’t even swat at the flames still turning his armor into smoldering ruin. Only his witcher ability to hold his breath for long periods meant he was still clinging to consciousness. 

Dimly he heard the whoosh of a portal opening, but there was no way for him to get to it. Thirty seconds, he’d been told; the mages would hold a portal for him for thirty seconds before assuming something had gone wrong. 

Something had _definitely gone wrong._ Geralt’s vision blurred, the world tilting around him. His Signs were nothing like this strong. His left arm was burning. 

“Nilfgaard,” spat the sorceress on the edge of Geralt’s hearing. “That thing leads right to the capital. Damn, damn, shit!”

The Yrden at last sputtered out and Geralt fell, just managing to twist back to his feet. He was casting Quen again as he did it, and only just in time: the witcher shot a crossbow at him and the bolt deflected off Geralt’s Quen rather than spearing him through the right shoulder. 

Behind him, the portal collapsed into nothingness. 

Before Geralt could do anything else, the massive force of an Aard bowled him over into one of the hall’s pillars. His head snapped into the stone and everything went black.


	3. Chapter 3

_Two weeks later_

Geralt sat atop one of the storage boxes at the edge of the main hall of Kaer Morhen, watching Eskel and Yen argue about the virtues and drawbacks of enchanted swords. Vesemir sat closest to the fireside, not contributing to the conversation but clearly listening, warming his creaky old knees in the heat. Kaer Morhen was cold even in late summer. 

All that was missing from the happy scene was Lambert. Eskel said Lambert had been alive only a few months ago when they’d parted ways, so hopefully he had stayed alive since. 

Geralt hadn’t missed the constant fear of never knowing if yet another of his friends had died. 

The chill from the stone walls seeped into Geralt’s flesh, pervading even his bones. It would be warm enough in here for people wearing layers, but Geralt still couldn’t make himself put away the thin things Emhyr had given him even though they had long since lost the scents of the palace. 

Geralt again traced the embroidered sun on one cuff. He’d memorized every stitch of it by now, rubbing at it day after day after day in Foltest’s dungeon.

Looking up into the rafters of the main hall of Kaer Morhen--or rather, the only hall that was still structurally sound and habitable, thus making it the main hall by default--Geralt thought about the fact that all of Kaer Morhen’s other wings had collapsed or filled with creeping rot long ago. The weight of memory pressed upon Geralt until he could barely breathe.

It was easy to picture what Emhyr would do about Kaer Morhen. He’d ring for a servant to send for an architect. Within a day, Emhyr would have plans to not only repair but improve and expand the ancient keep, and by the time it was done, every room would be warm and watertight. 

As with so many such thoughts, Geralt had to wonder: how much of the pleasure of loving Emhyr was merely love of access to the wealth and power Emhyr commanded? To someone as used to hard living as Geralt, palace living was heaven. It had been even when he’d had nothing more than a week of conscious memory of being in Nilfgaardian army captivity.

It seemed obvious, now, that Emhyr had engineered their meeting to cause Geralt to immediately associate Emhyr’s presence with relief and pleasure. It was ludicrous to think that Emhyr hadn’t _known_ how Geralt had been treated during his trip to the capital. Which made Geralt wonder, really, what Emhyr had planned to do if Geralt had ever pieced that together while still with Emhyr. 

But Geralt knew himself well enough, now, to know that he wouldn’t have. He would have assumed it had just been an issue with the chain of command, or supposed that Emhyr hadn’t been certain of the truth of his reports that had said the witcher the soldiers had found was Geralt when Geralt had been supposedly dead for years. After all, Geralt was extremely skilled at assuming the best of those he wanted to love even without much evidence that he should, wasn’t he? How many times had Lambert told Geralt that his sentimental attachment to Vesemir was just that Geralt had managed to forget their childhood and the Trials, and desperation because most of the other older witchers were dead? How many times had Eskel and Jaskier both said that Geralt’s relationship with Yennefer worried them because of the way she tried to control even his thoughts of other people?

Yet again Geralt’s skin crawled, a sense of wrongness and disgust so powerful that it drove him to rise. He strode out of the hall, determined to go rearrange his little room (his little cell, he couldn’t help thinking) with all the things he’d managed to accumulate over most of a century of work. As if his paltry trinkets and book collection _mattered_ when Emhyr would never share this bed with him. As if walking could take Geralt away from the feeling of wrongness. 

When he arrived at his room, he shut and locked the door behind him. It helped even though it was stupid and he knew it was stupid. 

Looking around the room, at the dusty knickknacks, racks of battered bits of armor he’d told himself for years he’d mend soon, and the small barrel containing his old swords, Geralt's eyes settled on his bed. He was going to deal with his bed. Yennefer had just portaled them into the keep today, so nothing had been cleaned yet. The mattress needed airing, the linens needed washing, the furs needed beating out to rid them of dust. 

A small part of Geralt reminded him that he could smell right now that while this mattress was very musty, yes--it hadn’t been used since Geralt had ‘died’ several years ago, and the others had left it untouched since--that what was wrong wasn’t anything that cleaning could cure. 

But the wordless fear in him demanded action, so he started on the bed. When Geralt had made a heap of bedding and was faced with the bare rag-stuffed mattress, sewn by one of the many human seamstresses who’d once lived in Kaer Morhen, and mended many times by Geralt himself, Geralt stopped again. 

He didn’t know who’d made this particular mattress. But he remembered the names and faces of the seamstresses who’d been alive when the keep had been sacked. He remembered coming back that year to find a mass graveyard in one of the old courtyards, humans and witchers and children all burned and buried together. Two-thirds of the keep Geralt had known all his life had been destroyed and abandoned, and the smell of burning and blood lingered everywhere. 

Gods, it had been so good _not_ to remember any of this. Geralt wished Emhyr’s mages were here and would make him forget all over again. Maybe if he crept out now, he could get far enough for Eskel not to be able to follow him. Then Geralt could make his way south to Nilfgaard. Surely Emhyr would welcome him back? Geralt was, if nothing else, a valuable resource--look at all the trouble Emhyr had taken to secure Geralt’s loyalty to begin with! So surely Emhyr would still want him, and then maybe Geralt would be allowed to just _forget_ again.

But Emhyr...Emhyr had called Ciri ‘our daughter.’ _Our daughter!_ The gall of that--the staggering, unmitigated gall when Emhyr had done everything possible to _separate_ Ciri from Geralt and Yennefer and any other family she had ever _chosen_ \--was breathtaking now. It caught in Geralt’s chest and felt rather like the pitchfork had.

And the prophecy about Ciri’s heirs...Geralt desperately wanted to forget that after being driven to attempt to _rape his own daughter_ by that prophecy, Emhyr had _still_ used it to manipulate Geralt into becoming an assassin. 

Emhyr’s regret and shame for what his position had ‘forced’ him to do had seemed so real when he’d talked to Geralt about it. But how real could that regret and shame be when he had _in that very same moment_ been twisting Geralt’s trust for his own ends?

Geralt had agreed to the killings because he’d loved Emhyr. Believed in him. Been naive and vulnerable enough to be used that way.

At past _ninety_ (Geralt’s own precise age escaped him now) he’d been no different from Pavetta at fifteen, taken in by the exact same man. Geralt wished he could forget the sight of her, too. But he couldn’t, recalling with perfect clarity the way she’d looked with her face lit from within by the fire of her childish love and hope, gazing up at Duny among the wreck of her engagement party. She had doubtless been a clever girl (Ciri certainly had been at that age) but she hadn’t been immune to romance. Had Emhyr manipulated her, too, into thinking their love was destined? He’d probably used the fact of her belonging to him by the Law of Surprise to convince her that they were meant to be. 

Geralt especially wanted to forget that he’d probably worn the exact same expression as Pavetta while looking at Emhyr--and Emhyr must have known it even if Geralt hadn’t. Sweet, hopeful Pavetta was long dead now, and her daughter _(our daughter)_ was gone somewhere Geralt couldn’t even begin to understand, much less reach her. 

For the space of a few heartbeats he stared down at the bare mattress and the pile of bedding and then he was scrambling at the lock, as desperate to get back to Yen and Eskel as he had been to get away. He needed to touch them, to be sure they were real. 

Once he was there, however, and he saw the cautious smile Yen was giving Eskel (she’d never wanted to hear about Eskel before, hadn’t even wanted Geralt to _think_ about Eskel in her presence because it had terrified her that she couldn’t ‘compete’ with a witcher he’d known since childhood) Geralt froze up again. He stood in the doorway to the kitchen, just staring at them--at the sorceress who had been a true and loving parent to the child Emhyr no longer had any claim to, and the witcher whose face Geralt had first learned love by looking at--and Geralt didn’t know what to do with himself. 

When he’d been with Emhyr, he hadn’t wanted anyone else. As far as Geralt had been concerned, Emhyr was it--what more could anyone possibly want? So, what if there was something _wrong_ with Geralt for having fallen in love with more than one person at the same time? What if he was _hurting_ them, manipulating them? Yen had always hated that she wasn’t the only one for Geralt, and Eskel had always been unhappy at any mention of the way Geralt had bound himself to Yen--was Geralt mistreating them both?

As Eskel shook his head at something Yennefer said, he caught sight of Geralt in the doorway. For a moment Eskel just looked at him, grinning in front of Yen even though Geralt knew that smiling made Eskel self-conscious about the damage to his lips. Then Eskel gestured Geralt over. At the motion, Yennefer’s gaze turned and she saw Geralt too. 

Gods, Geralt was still wearing the clothes Emhyr had given him. Wasn’t _that_ an awful thing for Geralt to do to his lovers? 

He considered just walking away again, going back to his rooms and changing into some of the old clothes stored there. But Eskel gestured a second time, insistent, so Geralt obediently went to his side. 

Settled onto the bench to Eskel’s left (Eskel always wanted people to sit on his ‘good side,’ as if Geralt cared about the scars) Geralt wanted to lean into the heat of him but couldn't make himself. Yen’s eyes tracked over the two of them together and Geralt expected her to frown, give him some sign of reproof. But instead her mouth curled into a thoughtful smile. 

“You’re sure you’re not interested,” she asked Eskel. “Because I can think of a lot of ways for two handsome witchers to be of service.”

Geralt flinched but Eskel just laughed. “We’ve been over this before. The only woman I’ve ever enjoyed sleeping with had hooves. Besides, we’d butt heads more than anything else in bed and you know it.”

Vesemir let out a noise of disgust, rising to go to the kitchen instead. “I’ll see about supper,” he said, as Geralt blinked and stared at Eskel. 

“Wait, _hooves?_ Since when have _you_ fucked a succubus? Why didn’t you ever tell me about it?”

Eskel’s smile faded a little, and he cleared his throat in obvious discomfort. “Aheh. I would have told you, but you were, uh. Dead at the time.”

At this, Geralt subsided. Everything was the same as when he’d left and yet nothing was. He wished again for the simplicity of having no memories at all.

That was one of the worst things to which Geralt’s thoughts kept returning: it had taken Yennefer and Triss exactly three days to figure out how to undo not only the Wild Hunt’s initial memory spell but the reinforcements made to it by Emhyr’s mages. _Three days._

Geralt hadn’t responded to nothing, and Emhyr could not possibly have faked the ways his body responded to Geralt. Which meant that there must have been at least _some_ kernel of something real and worthy between them. But it had taken Yen and Triss only three days to cure what Emhyr had said could not be fixed. Geralt remembered the headaches, dizziness, and nausea that came from the ‘examinations’ of the court mages. It all made sense now. 

And yet, at the exact same time, Geralt looked at Yen and thought, _Emhyr likes a clever mind. They’d get along, I wish I could introduce them._

Emhyr was a tactical thinker, able to plan for multiple eventualities and outcomes. He’d planned his manipulation of Geralt masterfully. And yet, he’d sent Geralt to Temeria knowing that there was a chance Geralt might run into Triss Merigold there or even Eskel or Yennefer. Had Emhyr been so confident in Geralt’s skill as a killer that he’d believed Geralt would murder any of them before they had any chance to speak to him? Or had at least some of Emhyr’s guilt been real enough that he’d sent Geralt there _hoping_ that he might be rescued?

Yen’s expression turned soft as she looked at Geralt, who was staring past her face at nothing. When Geralt finally pulled his mind back to the present moment, he wondered what she was thinking to look at him that way. 

“I am sorry it took us so long to convince Foltest to let you go,” she said, shockingly gentle. “The fact that Princess Adda is still steadily improving went a long way to remind him of your finer qualities.”

Desperate for a distraction and wanting to just hear their voices for a while, Geralt asked, “What even happened to cause the two of you to be there in Foltest’s court? You said it was something to do with the new damage to the courtyard walls here?”

Describing what had happened in the last four months Yen and Eskel had traveled together turned out to be a very long story indeed. With the setting of the sun, the hall grew colder still, so they moved from the table to the warm stones in front of the hearth.

This close to them both, their familiar smells filled Geralt’s nose. The faint tang of Eskel’s sweat, metal and leather and the oils he used on his swords and armor, horseshit on his boots, and the last fading acridness of Blizzard seeping from his pores. For Yen, the ozone smell of portals and the warm human bloom of her skin and hair which she tried to hide under her long-standing favorite perfume, lilac and gooseberries. 

Cocooned in a little pool of their scents and the decades of memories which went with them, mesmerized by the pop and crackle of the fire and the washing movement of its flames, something in Geralt relaxed. His thoughts slowed until at last it didn’t hurt to lean against Eskel’s solid bulk and allow Yen to set one delicate hand atop Geralt’s. By the time they arrived at the end of the story, he could almost breathe. 

If he moved, the reality of everything else would come pouring back in. This much he knew. But at least until Vesemir called them all to supper, Geralt could set it aside and forget.


End file.
